


Hunger

by Savorybreakfasts



Series: Tumblr prompts and ficlets [3]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M, trigger--child abuse, trigger--eating disorder, trigger--food restriction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 11:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14235873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savorybreakfasts/pseuds/Savorybreakfasts
Summary: Started as a response to a tumblr prompt, and veered in its own direction.





	Hunger

“Nice oink-oink.”

 “I’m hungry, Dad.” Julian continued shoveling food into his mouth. He’d hoped he could finish eating before Richard returned, but here he was, standing over the table, looking around with contempt bordering on rage. Julian belatedly realized that he hadn’t put the dishes from his last snack into the recycler, and his tennis gear was scattered throughout the room.

 “I see. Must have been very hungry today, for this many dishes.”

“Dad…”

“This is all you do, Jules. Whatever you want. Eat what you want, when you want, neglect your responsibilities. Have you even done your homework? Did you actually work at practice today or were you in too much of a hurry to get home and, and, _eat?_ ” The disdain dripping from the last word would follow Julian well into his adult life. “This ends now, Jules. You’re eleven years old; it’s time you learned some discipline. I’m putting the replicators under my control. Everything we’ve invested in you, we’re not going to see you throw it away to your laziness and gluttony. If you want to eat, you can ask me.” 

He wouldn’t ask. He refused. Not eating became a battle he could win. It couldn’t be taken away if he refused it. He ate secretly, at school, at friends’ houses, and, but only when absolutely necessary, when he could hack into the replicator late at night. He learned to enjoy being hungry. It made him feel powerful. He ate as little as he could and wished he were stronger and could eat even less. At home, at meal times, he sat silent, not eating, flaunting his self-discipline at his father, who seemed to gain every kilo Julian didn’t. Amsha gave up on family meals. She tried to talk to him, but he shrugged her off each time, saying, “I’m not hungry.”

 Sometimes the body memory of hunger woke Julian up at night. There was no remedy at those moments but to eat. This was one of those nights. He shoveled porridge into his mouth, swallowing huge bites covered in brown sugar, floating in whole milk. He started when he realized Garak was standing over him. “Rather early for breakfast, isn’t it?”

 “Oh, um, I couldn’t sleep. Thought a snack might help. Warm milk, sugar—it boosts serotonin levels. Old Earth remedy for insomnia.” He hoped Garak was buying it. He would have to be more careful. Garak had already commented more than once about how fast he ate; he didn’t need to draw any more attention.

 Garak brought it up frequently. “The speed with which you humans eat. Generations removed from knowing scarcity, hunger, and yet you eat as if the plate might be snatched from under your nose at any minute!” He didn’t seem to notice that Julian was always the first one finished among his human friends, too. He was enjoying theorizing too much, and that suited Julian just fine. Of course humans were generations removed from knowing hunger. How could he possibly explain the hunger he had known in a post-scarcity world? Anyway, it wasn’t as if Richard had starved him. He would have let him eat if Julian hadn’t been so stubborn. It shouldn’t have affected him so. He’d read enough old literature to know that many children had been sent to bed without supper, and they couldn’t all have his problems. No, this was something wrong with him, and he did not need Garak to know about it.

 Some days were better. Sometimes it disappeared for months on end, this memory of hunger that woke him up, terrified. Most days he didn’t feel the drive to not eat, the clarity and thrill of the hunger, the misery of the nights that inevitably followed. Most days, except for eating a little bit too fast, he felt like anyone else. It wasn’t serious. He could keep it under control.

 When he went to Cardassia, for the second time in his life he couldn’t get enough to eat. He was hungry, and he hated himself for needing to eat. He pushed his food on Garak, claiming he didn’t like it, he had eaten at work, any excuse he could find. The hollow-eyed children he saw at the clinic haunted him. Food had always been his private problem, his secret in a world that had moved beyond hunger. Now, surrounded by hunger every day, eating became unthinkable. He feared that if he gave in and ate it would all crumble, all the strength he had would disappear and he would be useless, worthless.

 When he collapsed at the clinic Parmak called in Garak.  Julian could hear them talking in the distance. No one ever remembered about his hearing. Parmak reassured Garak that he would be ok, that he had set up an IV and Julian just needed to be monitored for now. And then he asked, “How long has he been starving himself?”

 Julian wanted to die hearing the shock, then guilt, in Garak’s voice as they discussed him. His mind shut down and he went to sleep.

 He awoke to Garak holding his hand. “I’m sorry, my dear. I seem to have been neglecting you.”

 “I’m not a child.”

 “No, you’re not. Merely a man with the same needs of us all, needs that aren’t met.”

 “I don’t need to eat, Garak.”

 “This situation would seem to say otherwise. How long has this been going on?”

 Julian didn’t know how to answer that. He didn’t intend to say them, but the words came out anyway. “Twenty-five years.”

 “Julian,”  Garak placed a hand on his face. “Tell me. Let me help.”

 “It started when I was a child. My father wouldn’t let me eat without asking.” He talked into the night, and as he did he wept with the relief of voicing it. All those years of carrying it alone. Garak was not dismissive. He didn’t see Julian as fragile, or broken. With one exception, when he became too angry and Julian had to extract a promise that he wouldn’t kill Richard Bashir, he did nothing but listen, holding Julian’s hand and radiating love.

 Parmak and Garak insisted he be transferred for treatment to a colony of Betazed. It was unimaginable to Julian that he would let anyone know about this, let alone treat him, and yet he complied. He accepted that he was no use to Cardassia like this, and that that didn’t mean he was of no use. He accepted that he did not have this under control.

 Garak held him at the shuttle-port. “Come back to me, my love. I’ll be here. I’ll always be here. You’ll be OK.”

Julian knew. For the first time in his life, he knew.

  



End file.
